As we mark the ten-year anniversary of the Tommy Wiseau movie The Room, how is lead actress Juliette Danielle coping with the fact that her first starring role was in a movie celebrated as the worst ever? Danielle was twenty years old when she got the part of Lisa, and had no idea how terrible the film was until she saw the premiere. For years, she avoided any part of it, even when the movie became a cult classic with monthly midnight showings -where people jeer at the screen.

At first, Juliette was stung by the press attention, particularly when it focused on her physical appearance. “On the Rifftrax"—that's the downloadable accompanying heckling track, led by former "Mystery Science Theater" host Mike Nelson—"they called me the ‘bloated corpse of Britney Spears,'" she said. “It’s funny when it’s somebody else but God, I was just in no way prepared for that.” A scene in which Juliette appears to have a bulging vein in her neck also received a great deal of attention, with fans yelling, “Kill it before it dies!” at the screen.

Eventually, Juliette set up a Facebook profile. There she wasn't heckled. Fans started posting photos on her wall of themselves dressed as Lisa; they told her how much joy the film brought them, how much fun they had at screenings; they quoted The Room to her and Juliette, to her surprise, found herself quoting it right back. She started watching cult movies like Troll 2 and Birdemic, and found that they gave her a renewed appreciation of The Room. She started attending Q&As after screenings. She started to entertain the notion of returning to acting.

“For a while I expected it to go away and I think that just would’ve made me a really unhappy person, waiting until I’m 75-years-old for this thing to go away,” Juliette said. “So I found that when I embraced it, it certainly made me a lot happier and more secure about the whole thing.”

Danielle has recently returned to acting, and is also trying out standup comedy. Read about Danielle's experience in making The Room and coming to grips with her notoriety at The Awl. Link -via Digg